Quantitative Analysis of Behavior Change of University Students and Activation of Central City Area by Kanazawa City Public Shared Cycle “Machi-nori” ～Through a Social Experiment to Expand the Area～

Abstract

While Kanazawa City is aiming to realize a compact city for sustainable urban growth, the city’s past urban development has been overly dependent on automobiles, which has caused the city’s liveliness to flow out to the suburbs and the vitality of the central city area to decline.

On the other hand, Kanazawa University’s Kakuma Campus, the subject of this study, is located in the suburbs far from the center of Kanazawa City, and it is not easy to get around the campus or to the center of town.

In order to gain knowledge to change students’ mobility in a socially and personally desirable direction, we conducted an experiment and analysis to improve the convenience of student mobility by expanding the area of the Kanazawa City public shared cycle “Machi-nori”. As a result, we found the possibility of changing students’ behavior (breaking away from dependence on automobiles, and promoting their mobility in the city center).